an association between air quality and copd in ahvaz, iran

Context: ahvaz, capital city of khuzestan province, with a population of more than 1 million people is very famous in standpoint of air pollution. nitrogen dioxide is emitted from vehicles and industries which can have short and long term effects on citizens. evidence acquisition: data were taken from ahvaz department of environment (adoe). stations were naderi, behdasht ghadim, havashenasi, and mohitzist. the copd attributed to nitrogen dioxide in ahvaz city, iran, in 2011 were calculated by utilizing relative risk and baseline incidence related to health end point nitrogen dioxide. data were analyzed by spss ver 16. results: the highest and lowest annually average nitrogen dioxide concentrations during 2011 were 70 and 21 μg/m³, respectively. the bureau of meteorology “havashenasi” and head office of adoe “mohitzist” had the highest and the lowest nitrogen dioxide concentrations during 2011, respectively. approximately 4% of the hospital admission for copd happened when the nitrogen dioxide concentration was > 10 μg/m³. low percentage of the observed health endpoints was associated with low concentration of measured nitrogen dioxide. conclusions: using alternative energy sources, such as solar cooking and electrical heating is effective, as is using fuels such as kerosene or coal rather than biomass. higher relative risk value can depict mismanagement in urban air quality. the lower level of relative risk value may be achieved if some control strategies for reducing nitrogen dioxide emission are used.